Such comb drives are believed to be understood from micro-mirrors, which are used increasingly in projectors, scanners or the like. In contrast to many types of drives, such as magnetic and piezoelectric drives, an electrostatic drive concept has the advantage that a mirror deflection may be achieved simply by applying a voltage (in the static case, essentially without loss of energy). In the case of small deflections, a nearly linear drive characteristic allows for a particularly simple controlling of the micro-mirror.
The disadvantage of the electrostatic drive concept is that only very little force may be applied in an area predefined for the comb drive, the predefined area usually being limited by the desired space-saving configuration of the micro-mirror. If, for example, multiple mirrors are to be combined as an array, it is beneficial to position the drive under the mirrors, in order thereby to be able to flexibly combine the individual mirrors with one another. The result of such an arrangement is that the installation space available for the comb drive is defined by the size of the mirror surface.